Dear Hyatt, I am a World of Hyatt Globalist, not an Explorist

Is this new Hyatt loyalty program confusing or what? Back in October, Hyatt changed the name of its loyalty program, as well as the terms and conditions, and it launches on March 1. This week we’ve all been getting those emails letting us know what tier we’ll be on next year. I got an email that said, “Welcome to the World of Hyatt, You’re An Explorist”. Only one thing wrong. It should have said, “You’re a Globalist” because according to me, I had made Diamond again for next year. Uh oh!

I started to check my own records and then thought to myself, call Hyatt and let them work through this with me. Could I possibly have been mistaken? I would not have been a happy camper if that was the case. I do keep good records but I’ll admit to booking and canceling stays, and some of my stays can be quite confusing in the way I set them up. And sometimes I use suite upgrades, and hotels often record these as two rooms which can also confuse the numbers.

I wasn’t on hold very long before a Hyatt representative answered. I explained my thinking and appreciated the fact that she didn’t have a Hyatt-is-always-right attitude. I asked her how many nights it showed I had for 2016. She said 46. Ah, good clue. OK, now I’m thinking it was a 4 night stay that was unaccounted for because I need 50 nights to make Diamond and according to me, I had those 50 nights.

Last year I booked a lot of 4th night free Hyatt stays using my Citi Prestige card benefit, so I figured my sleuthing should start here. It turned out that my last stay of the year was the one missing. It had a suite upgrade attached to it and also part of my stay at that hotel went into the new year. See, I do book some wonky hotel stays. The Hyatt agent put me on hold because this required a supervisor’s attention. I was on hold a long time and given my positive nature, figured this meant things would work out in my favor. She came back after a long while and said, “Are you still there?” They needed more time, so back on hold for a bit and then she gave me the good news.

Not only were they going to credit those 4 nights, but I hadn’t gotten all my Hyatt points I should have for that stay. Sweet resolution, indeed. The Hyatt agent said the new email verifying my Diamond status going forward would come in 24-48 hours, but within a few minutes I got that email. Nice! Way better and faster resolution than what I was expecting. I was nervous that the issue had been my own miscalculations.

I’m wondering, have you ever had this happen to you? Good outcome or not? Do you track your hotel nights or do you rely on the hotel chain websites to track them for you?

13 thoughts on “Dear Hyatt, I am a World of Hyatt Globalist, not an Explorist”

Glad you got this resolved. I had a freak out moment when I received the same email, despite my account clearly showing Diamond through Feb 2018. I immediately messaged them and was told that since my status had to manually adjusted (because my 2016 Hyatt credit card spend incorrectly posted to this year), the system still sees me as Explorist. Based upon the way their system tracks things, I wouldn’t be surprised if I get more correspondence referring to me as Explorist. The same may happen to you since they had to fix yours. I’m hoping things like the suite upgrades and free Cat 1-7 night don’t have to be manually added as well, but at least we’ll have a dedicated Globalist line to call after this month. (Of course we may not get that info if the system doesn’t send the email telling us how to get in touch!). I love many things about Hyatt, but their IT infrastructure can leave much to be desired.